


Dread Less

by myrifique



Category: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares
Genre: F/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrifique/pseuds/myrifique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness.</em>
</p><div class="center">
  <p>*  * *<br/></p>
</div><em>Paul looked at Lena. Millions of boys had looked at Lena, but no one had ever looked at her like that.</em><p>  <em>Paul and Lena, Lena and Paul. They didn't even smile at each other or say anything. Maybe they didn't even realize something was happening, but Carmen did. She just knew it.</em></p><p>  <em>Suddenly, in the middle of the cozy four-top, a chasm opened. On one side were the world and the restaurant and all the regular people like Porter and Carmen. On the other side were Paul and Lena. As intensely alert as she was, Carmen didn't feel like she could look at them or listen to them. She didn't belong there, on the other side.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Dread Less

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katayla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/gifts).



> Happy yuletide, katayla!
> 
> This ignores most of the stuff post-book 3, though I did use what worked for me out of sheer lazyness.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta!

All their lives, the four of them had called Lena the beauty of the group, with an asterisk that said Bridget's hair was in a category of its own. Tibby had a lot of quirky charm going for her. They all looked pretty sexy when they wore their beloved Pants.

But right now, on the beach, with the sun shining down on her veil as she walked down the makeshift aisle with her father, it was hard to remember why Carmen wasn't the one winning their private beauty contests. Standing at the front, with her two beloved friends carrying the same bouquet and wearing the same denim-like dresses, Lena felt Carmen's loveliness hitting her full on. She supposed it must have hit the groom just as strong. But at the moment, it felt like it was all for her, this physical representation of the passing time punching her in the face.

Carmen was the first bride of their group, although Tibby had been living in Australia for almost two years with Brian, and Bee was off travelling wherever there were ancient remains to unearth, Eric in tow. (When she listed it like that, Lena tried very hard not to think about who she was supposed to be paired with. Just because her friends all met the loves of their lives when they were sixteen - well, Carmen had waited until eighteen, practically on the verge of spinsterhood, really - did not mean that _she_ … oh, look, another day where she had failed to forget about Kostos.) 

Lena and Carmen were the only ones holding the American fort, both of them living in New York City, in the tiny apartment where Tibby and Bee had previously piled up with Carmen. When Bridget left, Tibby and Carmen had both gently pushed and prodded at Lena until she agreed to leave her minuscule Providence studio behind - the money making less and less sense as time went on - and six months later, Tibby announced that she had bought her ticket to the other side of the world. Six months after that, Carmen got engaged.

And now, here she was.

The apartment was a one-bedroom. Which was fine, when the person you met before your morning coffee was someone who had been part of the same diaper changing assembly line as you. Less fine, when a stranger brought someone home and tried to pretend the makeshift walls - made of curtains - were soundproof. 

Lena shook her head to forget about that, and she smiled as Win and Carmen exchanged vows, then rings, then a particularly passionate kiss that had Carmen laughing on the pictures. She smiled as Bee headbutted the bouquet so that it'd land in Tibby's hands instead of hers - Lena herself standing to the side, only half-heartedly raising her arms. She smiled as Win and Carmen led a dance to _Beat It_ that she then had to join in, all four of them laughing through their terrible moves. She smiled as the three of them made a speech, joking about Win marrying Good Carmen and Bad Carmen and Whole Carmen.

She smiled so much her cheeks ached. When she realised it, she frowned. Lack of practice.

She tried to smile again when she looked at the seating chart. She remembered Win coming over with an enormous chart and the laughing arguments he and Carmen had over it, as Lena hid in her bedroom, though her opinion had still been needed once or twice. She remembered learning a surprising amount of gossip about Carmen's actor friends and who could be seated next to whom. She remembered Win's gigantic amount of cousins. She did not remember being seated next to Paul.

It made sense, she supposed - Paul was one of the groomsmen. Carmen had insisted on the wedding parties being symmetrical - obviously, Carmen needed three bridesmaids, so Win had his brother, his best friend, and Paul. Surrounded by Win's outgoing friends, serious, quiet Paul had probably been quite a sight at the bachelor party. Lena supposed being with Paul was better than being with either of them - at least he wouldn't try to engage her in small talk. 

He was more the type to go for big talk, she supposed. Or, really, big silence, with a tiny sentence here and there, always as precise as an arrow reaching for its goal. A very insightful arrow.

So when Tibby brought up the subject of Lena's impossible search for a roommate, and he quietly said, "Actually, I've been looking for a place in New York City" - something about a promotion, working at headquarters, she wasn't listening - Lena felt a piercing pain somewhere in her chest. She wasn't surprised.

* * * 

Lena didn't think she would require time to get used to the silence. She loved her best friends dearly, and yet she had frequently gotten overwhelmed with the noise and the constant love and joy Carmen brought with her. (Sometimes, when auditions didn't go her way, or when Win worked extra hard for a couple of days without calling her, it was love and despair. Maybe "passion" would have been the better descriptor.) (She preferred to focus on details like that, rather than to dwell on the fact that she got overwhelmed by love.)

It still turned out that being alone with her thoughts was more disquieting than she would have predicted. Bridget and Tibby got an unusual amount of texts during Carmen's honeymoon. She even sent an email to Paul, to settle the details of his arrival - he was to arrive a week after Carmen's official moving out date. And if she stared for a little too long at stamps big enough to carry mail overseas, at least she didn't actually write anything on the envelope.

Carmen came back, and she brought her whirlwind along with her, but she was only there for small bursts, boxing up everything around the house - including half of the things Bee had left in their care, as she nomaded her way across the planet. Win had brought over a friend to move Carmen's bed to their new place. Lena half-thought about taking the bedroom for the week, in order to claim the space before Paul arrived, but instead she just put up her own paintings on the nails Carmen left behind in the wall, and installed a bigger canvas than usual on her easel, right in the middle of her old room. The light was beautiful. 

She was a teacher by day and worked on illustrating children's books by night. Both jobs combined didn't stretch far enough for her to live alone, as was obvious by the fact that her roommate was arriving any day now. Both jobs forced her to be in contact with people in a way that she had not expected when she picked up her pencil and drew her first portfolio - though at least she got used to the few students in her class around November. Searching for contracts, however, never stopped giving her cold sweats, and sometimes she preferred eating rice and beans for a week to calling in a new client. It felt a bit weird that a career in the arts meant she didn't have much time to actually create art.

Paul arrived on the last day of August. She moved out the easel. She tried scrunching it up between her dresser and her night table, but the big canvas didn't fit, and she felt a little silly for having such ideas of grandeur as she stored the half-finished painting against the others, piling up on the wall. She had, however, forgotten to take down the paintings, a fact which made her blush furiously when he entered the room.

"Is this your room?" he asked, his eyes lost in the painting in front of the door.

"Ah, no," she said. "I sleep in the living room. I'm sorry, I forgot to take these down. I'll just store them with the others."

He calmly stopped her movement, his hand landing softly on her arm. He stopped looking at the painting at last, finally taking in the rest of the room, empty but for the mattress he had gotten delivered. "You sleep in the living room?" he repeated, and she nodded. He paused before speaking again. "Would the gentlemanly thing to do be offering the bedroom, or letting you stay where you are?"

She wondered for a second if he was trying to flirt with her - asking for the best way to appear charming - but he seemed to be genuinely curious. "Oh, I don't need the bedroom," she answered at last. "The living room is cozier than it seems. Come, I'll show you, just give me a minute to take down these-"

He interrupted her again, his hand warm on hers. "Please, if you don't mind, I'd love to keep them. My walls in Philadelphia were incredibly... beige." 

She bit her lip and looked at the bursts of color on the canvases. Her own wardrobe was all beiges and browns and khakis; she still wasn't sure where those rainbows had come from. "Sure," she finally said. "But don't hesitate to change your mind."

He smiled and nodded. She wasn't sure if she should leave or not. _Oh god_ , she thought. _This is going to be like living in an endless uncertainty_.

* * * 

She didn't sleep, that first night. She was hyper-aware that there was a boy next door. She knew Win slept over every other night. She even remembered sleeping on the floor in Carmen's bedroom when Brian slept over, and she knew Eric was around all the time, and yet. None of them were _her_ boy.

She jolted when the thought occurred to her. _Hers_? Before she could stop them, her thoughts landed in Santorini, on a church bench where two babies with dark eyes sat with their happy parents. She thought of a kiss on the cheek followed by condolences. She thought of the only person she ever thought as hers, and then she didn't want to think anymore.

She tossed and turned before giving up at five thirty, and put on the usual amount of coffee, before realising that _the usual_ means _enough for two_. Which meant she made coffee for Paul. She froze and considered dumping the rest in the sink. _God, I can't do this_ , she thought. She was going to send a strongly-worded text to Carmen as soon as it was a normal-people hour.

He got out of his room soon afterwards, looking much better rested than she did. He was wearing a U Penn t-shirt and gray pajama pants; she was wearing a pencil skirt, though she didn't have to teach for seven hours. His hair stuck out. She breathed in carefully.

He disappeared in the bathroom and she hid her face in her hands, before grabbing her phone. (Screw the clock.) 

_I CAN'T DO THIS_ , she wrote to Carmen. The little answering dots appeared much earlier than she'd feared.

 _Did you guys kiss? :D_ wrote her best friend in the whole world. Lena couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up out of her, a strange sound that could probably be interpreted as a sob.

 _I made him coffee._ Lena wrote.  
_He slept next door._

_He's just a roommate, L._

But Paul entered the kitchen again, and he asked if he could take some coffee, and she felt her whole body yearning for him. 

_Isn't he?_ Carmen sent again.

* * * 

_Dearest lady Kaligaris,_  
 _Tibby agreed to switch the schedule around and so you'd get the Pants earlier, even though I am closer to her than to you, for once. It sounds like you need them. I took care to use up its one wear a month - still harsh, bee tee dubs - in the best way possible, sitting in the dirt as I discovered an entire city! Just kidding - I wore them in the lab. But I did find an almost-not-broken-up vase!_

_Wear them well, as you always do,  
Bee_

* * * 

Lena put on the Pants as soon as they arrived, and she immediately felt like she could breathe again. She would just wear them for half an hour, she rationalized. It wouldn't count. (The sisterhood had had a meeting regarding the problematic sides of the continuing use of the no-wash rule. It was decided that every girl would have the Pants for one month, during which she could only wear them for one day. Bee had the most trouble with it.)

She felt like her friends were around her, calming her down, talking her down the weird ledge she had been standing on for the past five days. Like Tibby was holding her hand, saying _nothing is going on, Lena_. Like Bee made her laugh and changed the subject. Like Carmen teased her about making mountains out of molehills - which, actually, the real Carmen had done more than once in the past few days.

Then, she heard someone (Paul, obviously, who else was going to be in their apartment) clear his throat, and she shoved her hands in her pockets, to keep the good feelings. "Hey, Lena? I'm not sure how to knock on your door," he apologized.

"Uh, just saying ‘knock-knock' is fine," she said, before mentally berating herself. _Why didn't I just tell him to come in?_

"But what if I do, and you try to make a joke, and I don't think of something in time?"

Lena stood frozen for a second. He's _joking_ , she thought, and the realisation relieved her almost as much as the Pants had. He was always quiet, and intense, and she didn't know how to deal with the feeling that every moment needed to be part of the story they'd tell their kids, or whatever, but now he had made a joke, and she felt like maybe things would be all right.

"Who's there?" she called out.

"... Paul," he said, after a beat, and she laughed as she opened the curtain door.

"Hey, the travelling pants," he said, with a smile of recognition. "Is it going to be a momentous day?"

Lena bit her lip, considered saying that it didn't count, but then she said, much quicker than she would have thought, "Yeah. I think it is." And she smiled, too.

* * * 

"I'm thinking of getting a TV," said Paul, a couple of weeks later, before taking another bite of his toast.

Lena looked up from her magazine, and crunched the last of her cereal for a couple of seconds. "Okay?" she finally said.

"I was just wondering where to put it. I didn't notice one in your room. Maybe we could try fitting it in the kitchen, so you can enjoy it, too." 

"Oh," she said. "Well, Carmen had one in her bedroom, and I usually went there when we wanted to watch something." 

"I see," he said. "Then I'll do the same, and you'll be welcome whenever you want."

"Thanks," Lena said, with a small smile.

 _So you're welcome in his bedroom whenever, huh?_ Carmen texted when Lena told her about the conversation, and Lena could just about see her eyebrows wiggling. 

_Very funny_ , she wrote back, and she tried to ignore the thrill that the words had given her. It'd been a while since she'd been in a boy's bedroom. _It's not like that and you know it_ , she texted again, and she knew it was herself she was trying to convince.

The TV came three days later. Lena helped Paul mount it on the wall - they had to remove a painting for it, and Lena was about to take it back to her room, but Paul softly asked if he could keep it. So she hung it again a couple of feet to the left, and tried not to feel any tightening in her stomach. 

"There," he said, when he was done. She pressed the power button, and she cheered a little when it turned on. He smiled at her and held up his hand for a high five, which she granted. 

"Who knew even an engineer could struggle with powering up a good ol' TV," she teased.

"I did not struggle," he said, in a fake dignified manner. "Also, I design cities. No plugging of anything required."

"Right," she said, amused.

"Want to try it?" he asked, and she nodded before thinking about it. 

There was no couch in the room. Paul sat down on his bed, like he did it every day (which- of course he did), and she stayed up, looking at the spot next to him, at the slope his mattress had formed when he sat on it, bringing his body closer to the center of the bed.

"What do you want to watch?" he said, browsing through Netflix's offerings. 

She turned her face towards the TV, feeling silly. "Oh, _Jane the Virgin_ , Carmen's always talking about that one," she said before she could stop herself.

"Oh, yeah, I remember an entire email about that time Jane kissed a guy," said Paul.

"Rafael," Lena supplied helpfully.

"Right. Let's do it," he said, and he hit play. She was still standing as the first few images rolled up on screen, and he asked "You coming?" like there was nothing to it. She turned towards him again, and he looked a little curious, and normal, and, and. She breathed in, and perched on the opposite side of the bed.

The show was good - very good - and she relaxed into it more and more as she got lost in the artificial inseminations and the luxury hotels and the white rose metaphors. Before she knew it, her feet were on the bed, and she had rolled down the middle of the bed, too, and her thigh was touching Paul's. She felt him chuckle at one of the narrator's lines before she actually heard him make a sound, and it set off a firework in her stomach.

* * * 

_My favorite Buzzing Bee,_  
 _The next time there'll be a passing of the Pants, it will mean you're home! I can't wait to see you for Christmas, and to hear all about your latest adventures. Things are good here, like you would know if you picked up your phone from time to time. The producers from that Amazon show want to meet me! (Another reason to pick up your phone - I can't use emojis on paper. I'll just say this: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I'm flying to LA in a couple of days._

_I can't wait to see you - did I mention this before? It's just that I can't wait to see you._  
_Happy November,  
Carma_

* * * 

"Knock knock," heard Lena.

She waited for a beat before going for it. "Who's there?"

She heard him shuffling outside, probably wondering if he should go for it, too. "Dee," Paul finally said.

"Dee who?" she asked, with a smile. She stood up from her desk and went to the makeshift door, eager. She could see his face through a small slit in the curtains - he was looking at the ceiling, rolling on the balls of his feet, and she was so endeared she thought she would burst.

"Dee-d you want to watch another episode of Jane?" His face twisted in both a cringe and a smile, and she opened the curtains, beaming. 

"Yes," she said, and he let out a breath he'd been holding, almost laughing. 

She sat down on his bed, telling herself it was like sitting down on Carmen's before she left, and when he fired up the episode, she forgot to think about much else but the Villanueva women, the men who loved them, and the man who was warming her side.

* * * 

Bridget came home for Christmas, and Tibby did not. They held a present-opening ceremony anyway, the three of them at Carmen's, Tibby on the other side of their FaceTime screen, whining about having had to wait until the 26 to open hers. Carmen talked about life as a newlywed. Bee filled their heads with the lives of long-gone people. Tibby was the one who dropped the biggest bomb on them, though, as she looked on with glee at the three of them opening her gifts - tiny baby shoes, with a note that said "be my godmothers?" Of course, all of them freaked out, and a lot of toasts were said in Tibby's and Tibby Junior's honour, and now Lena was a little tipsy.

Tibby hung up eventually, and Bee drunkenly declared she was sleeping on Carmen's couch before grabbing another bottle of gin. Carmen, who was a handsy drunk, grabbed Lena's arm and pleaded in a variety of ways to keep her home, too, which made Lena laugh, and agree.

A couple of hours later, and a couple more drinks later too, the three of them piled up on Carmen's bed - Win having good-humoredly vacated the premises. Lena stared at the ceiling and thought of Tibby having a baby, and Carmen being married, and how much she felt like time was getting away from her. All she had to show for her twentysomething years was a teaching job she didn't much like, a couple of book covers that didn't pay the bills, a long lost love, and some sad hookups in college. She sighed.

"Are you thinking about Kostos?" asked Bee, really loudly.

"Shhh," said Carmen. "We don't say the K-word. She hasn't mentioned him in a month!!!" Lena could feel the extra exclamation points in her friend's voice. 

"I didn't mention him before," protested Lena.

"Oh, but you did, Lena-girl," said Bee. 

"We know you," Carmen agreed. "We know what you think." The alcohol, combined with this ridiculous dialogue, made Lena feel like she was in a sitcom, where all along her thoughts had been broadcasted out loud, and she just hadn't noticed.

"And you've known that I hadn't been thinking about him for a month?" asked Lena, a little peeved.

"Yes," said Carmen. "You have been thinking about Pauuuul."

Lena's mouth went dry. "I haven't," she replied, automatically. But she knew she was lying. The fact that she had been thinking about another guy wasn't necessarily what was annoying her - she had had a couple of crushes in the years since Kostos' wedding. But she realized, in that moment, that it had been a couple of weeks since she'd thought about him. And part of her felt like she couldn't be letting go of him - like he was part of the fabric of who she was, Lena Kaligaris, wearer of the Traveling Pants, artist, lover of Kostos Dounas. The thought of letting go of the last part made her breath hitch. 

"Living with your crush is hard," said Bee, nodding emphatically, for a couple of seconds too long. Lena had to take a second to remember what she was referring to, to realize that neither girl had noticed her rewriting her entire definition of herself.

"I don't have a crush on him," said Lena, and then she paused. Both of her friends waited for her, like they knew she had more to say, and the fact that they did know her so well made her think that they probably knew, indeed, what she was thinking of at most times. "It's just been so weird for such a long while," she said. "I've just started to see him as a potential friend, and not as someone who I was destined to be with. Carmen, ever since you told me about that time you saw him and me on one side of the world, and the rest of you on the other, it's made me-"

"You told her that?" Bee gasped, hitting Carmen on the arm. " _Why?_ You know how she gets!"

"I didn't know they would even see each other ever again!" Carmen protested, though she did sound guilty. "It was years after their first meeting, Lena was dating that weird guy-"

"Leo," Lena supplied.

"I thought the Lena and Paul story was something I had just hallucinated! I laughed as I told her!"

"And Lena went on to obsess about a funny story you told," said Bee, "for years." All three of them sighed. 

"I'm sorry," said Carmen. 

"Don't be," said Lena. "We all know I'm the over-dramatic one."

"And I try so hard to be, too," said Carmen, and they chuckled.

"Well," said Bee. "At least it wasn't about Kostos."

* * * 

Lena had gone to sleep at 10pm, like the good girl she usually was, but she had found herself tossing and turning. Paul was gone on some kind of engineer Christmas party, and she was not waiting for him, but, well, he was usually right next door when she was sleeping, that was all. And he would probably make noise as he came home, which would wake her up anyway. So she might as well work on something, and forget about- she didn't even have anything to forget about, she shook her head to remind herself.

She was hard at work on an illustration, though somehow she hadn't made any progress, when she heard the key turn in the lock. Relief flooded her, even if she didn't want it to. 

She listened to his careful steps - the way he caught the door before it closed with its usual bang, how he stepped around the noisier parts of the floor, how he held his keys together before dropping them in their bowl so it wouldn't make noise. He was never a loud person, Lena knew, and yet she found all his precaution touching. Then she found herself idiotic for finding him touching.

"Knock knock?" he whispered, and she realised the light from her work table was probably shining through the curtain.

"Who's there?" she replied, whispering too, even though there was no need.

"Walt," he said.

"Walt who?"

"Walt are you doing up so late?" he asked, peeking his head in the door. 

"‘Walt' is kind of cheating at this game," she pointed out. 

"Next time, you come up with something," he said, and he sounded unusually cheerful. "Can I come in?" he asked.

"Uh, sure," she said, and she watched as he flopped down on her bed, then got up immediately to look at what she was working on.

"Sorry about your bed - I forgot my gentleman manners," he said, the latter two words spoken in this kind of whisper-shout that made her giggle. 

"Good party?" she asked, and he nodded emphatically without saying anything. 

"This is very pretty," he said, pointing at her work. 

"It's a mess," she said, and he frowned. "But thank you?" she added, feeling guilty for not accepting the compliment.

"Everything you do is pretty," he added. "Not pretty," he frowned again, searching for the right word. "Beauuuutiful. Art." 

"Hmm," she said noncommittally. "I'm not sure I agree. Art doesn't really pay the bills." 

"Then you should sell your paintings. I will buy the one right on top of my bed. I am obsessed with it. When I can't sleep, I just look at it for hours."

Lena wasn't sure she had ever heard Paul string this many words in a row. Part of her felt like she should stop him, just send him to bed before he bared any more of his soul. 

"You didn't tell me why you were up so late," he said, lifting his head like he suddenly remembered the most important part of the conversation.

"I just couldn't sleep," she said, feeling a little lame. He seemed to expect such a revelation. 

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep either," he said, pondering her words. He switched from giddiness to his usual seriousness in the blink of an eye, and she was, once again, endeared. "I had… a lot of shots."

"I didn't peg you for a shot-drinking guy," said Lena, grinning.

"Peer pressure is very real, Lena," he sighed. "And very fun. Sorry to bother you - am I bothering you? - I'll just leave you to your work." She started to protest, talking over him as he added "Your very beautiful work."

"You're not bothering me at all," she said. "It's not like I'm a paragon of productivity at one in the morning. I don't know what I was thinking - I like a little more sunlight."

"My room has a lot of sunlight," he said.

"Yes, it does," she agreed, smiling at his non-sequitur.

"You should paint in my room!" he said, startled by the revelation. "You were painting in my room before I got there," he said, and it sounded like an accusation. "Why did you stop?"

"Because it's your room?" she replied helplessly. 

"I am not there during the day," he said. "I shall move my desk and there will be room for your easel. Or- work table. I am not judging your choice of material," he patted her illustration, "all of your art is pretty art. The paintings are the prettiest, though."

She was torn between amusement and distress. Being Lena, she went with the latter. "Please don't," she pleaded. "I don't want to put you out-"

"Nonsense," he said, standing up straight. "I will move it _right now_."

She followed him to his room, pleading all the while, until he made to move the desk, and she had to physically grab his arm. "Paul," she said, and he looked at her hands on his arms, and he looked at her mouth saying his name, and he stopped moving. She looked at his eyes watching her, and she stilled, too. "We have neighbors," she finally said, and he opened his mouth as she opened hers to speak, and desire pooled in her core. 

He didn't reply, his breath slow and even, as he seemed to concentrate on every detail of her lips. She felt his chest rise and fall, standing so close to him. She let go of his arm.

"Do you want to watch some TV?" she asked, fumbling for something to say. His eyes had followed her in her retreat.

He shook his head, like someone waking from a dream. "Sure," he said. "Maybe the crazy going-ons of a telenovela will calm me down."

She sat on the bed, then regretted it as soon as he got under the covers. "Wouldn't you rather go to sleep? I'll just leave-" 

He stopped her, closing his fingers around her wrist. She stayed. He didn't let go of her. 

He fell asleep five minutes into the show. She spent hours in his bed, half-sitting half-lying down, his fingers on her pulse point. He finally moved when the sun's first rays hit his face, and she rose up, closed the blinds, and didn't even bother pretending she could sleep after that.

* * * 

The next time she had a night class, she came home to his desk in the hallway.

(He had put a bow on it. So when he left, she sneaked into his bedroom, and put a bow on the painting above his bed, the one he liked so much. Neither of them mentioned it.)

* * * 

Bridget and Carmen both spent the turn of the year with their boyfriends' (husband, Lena reminded herself, Carmen was _married_ ) families, and Lena decided to be a big girl and not to whine about it. Of course, being a big girl apparently also meant spending the entire day in her pajamas and not working on her illustration contract, not even a little.

Paul left in the morning. He took the time to tell her he had errands to run and would be gone for a while, and she was free to use his room as much as she wanted. Which had sounded a little weird - she had immediately conjured this image of her hiding from her cold and drafty room in his bedcovers, watching Netflix until the sun came down - but she realized he was probably talking about her painting. 

She felt a little thrill of excitement at the idea of painting again - and, if she was honest with herself, a tiny beat of disappointment as the idea of wasting her day escaped her. It was one of those beautiful and dreadfully cold days, and the sun rays hit her easel just right, and she sighed in satisfaction as she started to work.

She had been working for a few hours, she supposed - she had only noticed the time in the changing of the light on her colors. But as she looked up from her work, she found Paul leaning in the doorway. He was looking at her, quiet as he always was, and she didn't know how long he'd been standing there. His hair was getting a little too long, some of it was falling in his eyes, the shadows contrasting his sunny pale look. She noticed the way the bars in the window streaked his body, and she wanted to paint him, wanted to remove his clothes and see if the hair on his chest would glimmer in the sunlight. 

Her breasts tightened and her mouth opened. He held her gaze steadfastly, his eyes never wavering from her face, as she looked all over him. She licked her lips, and waited for him to say something. 

"Can I see?" he asked, finally, when he seemed sure she was done painting.

She nodded, and he walked over to her. She was sitting near the wall but he stood between it and her, and she felt the air entering and leaving his body as he breathed. She resisted the urge to lean against him. 

He looked for a long while, and she did too, adding a stroke or two. "I love it," he finally said, and she felt warm all over. He seemed about to add something, but then thought better of it.

She pressed. "What?"

"I was just wondering when the world will be able to view your paintings in a gallery," he said, "but I think that might be too loaded a subject for this nice moment we're sharing."

She froze, then sighed, then laughed, and admired the way he broached the subject. (Carmen had a tendency to go for more of a chainsaw approach, delicate sensibilities be damned.) "I don't know," she said. "I don't know when I'll ever feel worthy of doing a show. I almost did, a couple of years ago," she added, and she thought she felt him nod. "Couldn't do it - woke up in cold sweats for a week before I finally cancelled it. And that was only the one painting, amongst colleagues."

He went silent again, and eventually she turned towards him. She had to angle her face upwards quite a bit to reach his eyes, and part of her had the absurd thought that she wanted to climb up on him. "Any plans for your last day in 2015?"

"Actually, yes," he said, and she felt a twinge of disappointment at the thought that he'd be leaving her again. "I wanted to invite you to dinner."

She held her breath, and found that she couldn't say a single word.

"I think your friends are out of town, and obviously you're not going back to your parents', so I bought the fixings for a good meal, and I thought…" He didn't finish. She didn't know if this was a pity thing - his reasoning seemed to make it so, not that she minded - or a date - just the two of them, sharing a good meal, on _New Year's Eve_ , and she wanted to text Carmen for a human interaction translation. Part of Paul seemed to want that too.

"Of course," she finally said. "How nice of you."

He smiled a great, big, beautiful smile. She stood up and went to her room to change, on the off chance that it was actually a date. She hesitated in front of her wardrobe for only half a second, throwing on the Pants before she had time to analyze what was appropriate possible-date-with-roommate apparel. It was the last day of the year, it was special anyway, she figured. The Pants were always appropriate.

He had planned four courses for dinner, two of which were Greek-inspired, the other two typically American, and he said something about melding their two cultures together that stupidly made her feel a lot of things. Then they bundled up on his bed and half-watched end of year shows.

"We could be watching the ball drop from the actual Time Square," she pointed out.

"No, we couldn't," he said, and he shivered at the thought. "Look at all these people." 

She smiled and looked at him, instead, and felt like a kindred spirit. 

That is, until he said his New Year's resolutions were reading more books ("116, for the year") and running a freaking marathon, and she felt inadequate all over again. He was already reading all the time, getting milk on the pages as he ate his cereal, bringing audiobooks as he left the apartment at 5am to run in the dreadful cold, and he was an engineer, and she couldn't even get the courage to participate in a gallery show she was asked in.

"Dread less," she finally said, after she had teased his goody-two-shoes resolutions relentlessly. "Mine is to dread less."

He nodded like he understood, and she didn't feel as silly as she had- dreaded. She sighed and rolled her eyes at herself, and she put her head on his shoulder.

She felt him still under her, and she worried he would gently put her down, or move, or find an excuse to get up. And he did move - very, very slowly, very tentatively, his head coming to rest on hers.

They didn't move until the countdown started, ten, nine, eight. Then, she raised her head, and looked into his eyes, seven, six, five. He opened his mouth, his eyes never leaving hers, four, three, two. She licked her lips and tilted her head, and time seemed to stand still in that one, like a lifetime passed between when she dimly heard it and the moment his mouth found hers. Happy New Year. Fireworks.

* * * 

It wasn't the first time in Lena's life that she woke up in a boy's bed. It wasn't even the first time in the past week - unless that other time didn't count since she hadn't really slept. It was hard to believe that she had slept this time around. She remembered a lot of kisses, and a feeling of peace settling over her body even as her entire skin tingled. She remembered the conversation, interspersed by kisses, their voices getting progressively lower and lower as both of them got too tired to keep going, but neither of them wanted to stop. He had fallen asleep with his arm around her and his head in her hair, and he was asleep still, and she didn't dare move.

She woke up again a couple of hours later - waking up in a boy's bed twice in one day, she thought, amused - and he was putting on a new shirt, and she regretted not opening her eyes ten seconds earlier so that she could see the whole show. 

"Are you going running?" she asked, sleepily, and he turned towards her. She was pleased to see he was still buttoning his shirt, and she spied some of that glistening reflected sunshine she had suspected previously. 

"I was planning on cooking us breakfast," he said, and as he finished buttoning up he stood awkwardly, not sure what to do, and she wanted to beg heaven and hell for a class on how to act on the morning after - though after what, she wasn't sure. He finally put a knee on the bed and half-climbed to her, kissing her again, and she sighed in pleasure as nicer butterflies replaced the distressed ones that had take residence in her stomach a minute earlier. "Do you want me to go running?" he asked, all low and secretive against her mouth.

"That's a weird question," she said, and she kissed him again, because she could. 

He responded in kind, then he said "I figured you might have some texts to send out. In three different directions." 

She laughed and blushed. "I'm not going to kick you out of the house to text my friends," she said, but he looked at her with a knowing grin, and passed her her phone. "Carmen is the one who's glued to her phone all day," she said, fake-haughtily. 

"As you wish," he said. "I'm still getting out of the room, for a good, what, ten minutes? Enjoy."

He left and she wanted to grab him and keep him with her - though her stomach growled and she realized, shocked, that it was almost noon, and so she let him go. 

Carmen sent them both a text that said "YOU KISSED?????????" with multiple hearts and celebratory emojis, and she heard Paul laugh in the kitchen.

"Is he a good kisser?" asked Bee.

"Ew," Carmen fired.

"Did you do it?" asked Tibby.

"EW AGAIN, YOU GUYS, THIS IS MY BROTHER," sent Carmen.

"Step-," said Tibby.

"Are you freaking out?" asked Bee.

Lena paused. "I seem to… not be," she said, finally. None of them wrote anything after she had sent her text, and she knew they were waiting as patiently as they could. "He's cooking us breakfast," she finally sent, because she didn't know how else to explain everything that Paul made her feel. "We kissed and we talked and we kissed again," she sent, and just saying that made her feel very exposed.

"That's a no on the ‘doing it', then?" asked Tibby.

"Climb him up like a tree! At the breakfast counter!" sent Bee, and Lena chuckled.

"Ok, I will," she sent, and she felt giddier than she had felt in months.

"EW," was the final text she saw before turning her phone off.

She blushed as she sat down at the table, looking up at him finishing their plates, Bee's words dancing in her head. The food was delicious, again. "I have to warn you, I could get used to having home-cooked meals all the time," she said.

He shrugged. "I like feeding you," he said, and the nuance between him saying something like "I like cooking" and what he had actually said warmed her all over. 

"Well, let me at least clean," she said, blushing slightly, again.

"Sure," he said, but he stood up by her side and dried every dish she was washing. He finished before she did, and as she wiped the sink she felt hyper-aware of him standing behind her - like all of her nerves were on high alert, waiting for him to do something. 

So when he finally touched her, his fingers featherlight on her hair, it felt like a relief. He brushed it softly aside so he could kiss the side of her neck, and she shivered as her whole body seemed to want to rise up to him. His hand came to rest on her hipbone, anchoring her to him. She dropped her rag and turned to him, one hand in his hair, one around his shoulders. They kissed and kissed and he tasted like the oranges he had cut up for them, and he felt like the sunshine in the middle of the cold grey winter. 

She wanted to crawl up inside of his body, to touch some of that warmth, that quiet confidence he always exuded, and so she held him closer and draped a leg around his, leaning up against the counter, and she moaned as she felt him, hard, against her core. He made a strangled sound as he rocked against her, and he grabbed her bottom and lifted her up on the counter, and she smiled as she thought that she was actually, kind of, climbing him like a tree. 

He smiled too, and she wondered if he had guessed what she was thinking about, but then he kissed her again and she forgot all about her friends as she rocked her hips and revelled in the feel of him between her legs. He moaned again and breathed out "Wait," and she stilled, her mouth still touching his. 

"I don't want- our first time- on the kitchen counter," he finally said, interrupting himself with kisses, and she laughed out loud.

"I didn't know you were such a romantic," she said, and she tried hard not to move against his hard-on again, as he bent down to kiss her neck, getting dangerously close to her cleavage.

"I think you did," he said, and she felt his arms tighten up around her and before she knew it he had lifted her up again, and she held on to him with everything she had, feeling weightless and sexy and desirable in a way that no one had made her feel. He kept kissing her as he took her from the kitchen to his bedroom, and he lowered her on the bed gently, like a damn romance hero.

"I just want to take my time," he said, and she shivered as his fingers traced slow patterns under her shirt, getting her undressed inch by inch. "We'll do the second one on the kitchen counter."

"Hoping to get to two, are you?" she said, and she felt light-headed, like she wasn't herself, because she couldn't be - this person who was bantering through her first time with a guy she genuinely really liked, like she wasn't a second away from exploding and imploding at the same time. _Dread less_ , she thought, and she went for it, for the calm and the laughter and for something that didn't feel like it would wrench her heart through more than it could withstand.

"Hoping to get to a lot more than two," he said, and he had finally gotten her shirt off. He bent down to lick her breast and her brain short-circuited for a couple of seconds. His stubbled cheeks hurt the tender skin of her breasts in the best way, throwing a little dissonant note in the chord he was playing on her skin. She had never seen him unshaven, his morning routine of run, eat, shower, shave never changing, and she got a thrill when she realised that she had managed to throw that all out of whack.

"Well, they do say," she said, and she wondered at her ability to talk, as he kissed her, as she unbuttoned his shirt, as she felt a billion things at once, "start as you mean to go on."

His head came up and he was grinning, his fingers deftly getting under the waistband of her pants. "Start 2016, you mean?" 

She nodded, unsurprised that she hadn't been making a lot of sense. He was finally shirtless, her hands running along his chest, until she pressed him down on her to feel his skin with her naked skin. He was soft and warm and _hot_ and golden and hers and-

"Lena Kaligaris, in my bed, every day of 2016," he said, kissing her collarbone. "That is how I mean to go on."

Then he unzipped her pants, and she rose her hips to help him out, until- "Wait!" she called out, all freaked, and he stopped immediately, scrambling back to a sitting position, giving her all the space in the world. It wasn't what she had meant, but she was touched by his consideration all the same. "I can't let a boy remove the Pants," she explained, and he let out a relieved laugh.

"Can a boy watch you remove the Pants?" he asked.

"Uh, yes," she said. "I can't promise it'll be graceful, though." She tried her best to shimmer out of the jeans, leaving her underwear on - she hadn't done laundry in two weeks, and she thanked god she was the kind of girl to wear the comfy raggedy pairs first, and leave the sexy ones for a last resort. Paul was still sitting up beside her, the higher position giving him an overlook of her entire body, and he took advantage of it, his eyes burning a trail on her. She got shy and tried to place her hair so it'd hide her breasts, but he was having none of it - he got the offending mane out of the way, one hand playing with it as the other explored her body with featherlight touches, making her shiver. 

"Come back," she said, finally. "I'm cold." 

He kissed her and leaned down on her again, his body still impossibly warm. He hissed when her cold fingers collided with his skin as she tried to undo his pants, and she apologized, but he smiled and said "I'll try not to think of crude jokes about ways to warm up your hands." 

She decided that if he got to be bold, and crude, so did she, and when his pants were off her hand found him, and if he hissed, it wasn't because of the cold. She worked at him for a minute - it did warm her hands, she noticed - and his eyes closed for a while, until he seemed to remember himself. 

He kissed her again, making his way down her body until her hand had to let go of him. He licked her collarbone, her breasts, her navel, the bone of her hip, and in the process he managed to take off her sexy underwear, and when he licked his way up her core she felt like she would lift off the bed. She held on to the sheets - she wanted to grab his hair, but it felt like too much - and threw her head back, closing her eyes, except that she wanted to look at him as he did this to her. So with great effort, she held her head up again, and he didn't even look up at her, so concentrated was he on doing a good job. A great job, she amended, as his tongue went faster and faster and his fingers moved in and out of her, filling her, until she screamed out. Her hand did go to his hair then, holding him in place, her inner walls clenching around his fingers as she rode on the wave he had crested. 

Everything stood still.

Her breathing slowed. Her usual walls wanted to come back up, wanted her to run away from the things he had made her feel. But he kept his fingers in her, moving slowly, his tongue licking less sensitive spots to let her recover, and as she finally relaxed her grip around him, she allowed herself to stay with him.

He came back up to her, and he kissed her - she tasted herself on him, and it felt like the dirtiest thing she had ever done. He was leaning over her, his arms supporting his weight, and she got lost caressing them - he was so strong, and so healthy, and so normal, and he wanted to be with her, even though he knew all her weird tics, and knew she was a hermit, and she couldn't quite believe it - though the erection pulsing steadily on her belly kept wanting to convert her. He kissed her again before grabbing a condom in his nightstand. He looked at her quickly before putting in on, in sort of a "is this okay" gesture, and she felt so full of joy, that he was such a good, uncomplicated man, that she smiled widely. 

It seemed to surprise him, this joy, but he embraced it, and as he pushed into her, she thought she could keep the joy forever.

* * * 

"We should go running", he said, around three in the afternoon. Her head was lying on his shoulder, his hand playing in her hair, her own tracing circles on his chest. 

She laughed. "Am I not giving you enough exercise?"

He chuckled too, kissing the top of her head. "I'm serious. Start as you mean to go on, right? I'm running a marathon this year."

"Are you also planning on stopping at the library on the way, to get started on that goal, too?" 

"Lena, it's 2016, there's a library in my ereader," he pointed out. "And I said ‘we' should go."

She laughed again. "I am not going running at minus a hundred degrees. Wait- I am not going running, period."

"There's a gym in the building," he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

"And I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot," she said. "I'll wait here." She wiggled her eyebrows, too, and he kissed her in the middle of their laughs.

"You could just walk on the treadmill," he said. "Please?"

She started to say no, but then she paused. Paul had moved in with her, when his engineer salary could probably buy a much nicer place than her tiny, cold apartment. Paul had given her his room to paint, had cooked her food, had given her multiple orgasms, and had never asked for anything. 

"Fine," she said. "If that's the hill you want to die on."

* * * 

_Dear Tibby,  
I know I'm a week early, but I feel like I've worn all the magic out of the Pants. (Just for the month, don't worry.) _

_Tibby, I don't know what to say. I think I might [two words were scribbled on, as if Tibby couldn't guess what they said]. He's gotten me to run! Every other day since January 1st! I don't even hate it, or him!_

_Hopefully the Pants will still fit your darling belly._  
Yours confusedly,  
Love,  
Lena 

* * * 

"Knock knock," said Lena, and she heard Paul laugh.

"Who's there?" he asked, and she poked her head in. He was reading a comic book, lying on his bed, and she thought he looked hot as hell. His shirt had ridden up, and she wanted to lick the small strip of skin badly enough that her breath hitched. 

"Hun," she said.

"Huns? Shall I cut my hair and take my father's place in the Chinese army?" he said, and she pretended to frown. "I mean, Hun who?"

"Hundred and sixteen books," she said, entering the room, carrying a set of well-worn children's books.

"Wow, the publishers really packed them in there, huh? I'll beat my goal in no time if there are really 116 books in these… five volumes," he said, picking up the first one playfully.

"I needed something for the joke," she said, "and I am terrible at it."

"It's a thankless art," he said, nodding. "What are these?"

Lena's cheeks colored. "Just these books I loved as a kid. I thought you might enjoy some lighter reading for your challenge, so I asked my mom to send them to me. And now I'm giving them to you," she said, feeling a bit silly.

"Wow, thanks," he said, reading the back cover carefully. "Well, I can see why baby Lena enjoyed them. Children named after colors by their painter mother?"

"Yeah, I guess I'm predictable," she said, and she blushed more furiously still. 

"I love them, thank you," he said, and he kissed her pink cheek. He kept the first one on his nightstand and put the others in his bookshelf. He looked at them for a while, then said "Our first books as a couple."

Lena took a minute to compose herself - he was still facing the books, and she suspected he was just giving her time to react. When the freaking out was under control, she made a joke, and congratulated herself for it. "So we're a couple, huh?"

"Well, unless you'd rather we stay friends with benefits," he said, climbing back on the bed, and on her. 

"I think I'll need to explore the benefits some more before I make a decision," she said, and she tried to kiss him, but he refused.

"Sorry, I'm like Julia Roberts, no kissing on the lips if we're just friends. Too personal."

"I did notice some similarities between you and Julia," she said. "So you're holding your kisses hostage unless I tell you that I like you?" Her tongue almost slipped on the ‘like'. 

"That sounds like a losing situation for all involved," he said, pouting a bit, and she really wanted to grab that bottom lip between her teeth. 

"I like you a lot," she said. "Please be my boyfriend, and please kiss me." 

He obliged.

* * * 

_September 2016_

The annual meeting of the Septembers had taken many forms throughout the years, spanning multiple seasons and cities. They had gone to visit Tibby a year after she first moved to Australia, they had joined up with Bee on one of her digs, they had met up in Carmen and Lena's tiny place. (The plane travel strained Lena's budget more than she wanted her friends to know, and yet, somehow, most of her bills seemed to get picked up by someone else when they went far away. She didn't mention it, but she was grateful for it.)

This year's was a first, though. They were in Santorini, which wasn't the first - they had all come here to celebrate graduating college, and Lena had fond memories of holding hands and jumping into the sea with her best friends, the open space barely a metaphor for the real life awaiting them on the other side of the school doors. 

The first took the form of the four men who had been invited along. Five, if you included Tibby's tiny newcomer.

The New Yorkers were the first to arrive, Lena opening up her grandparents' house and preparing everything for her coming friends. She took her grandparent's room, feeling a rush of fond memories when she saw their pictures on the nightstand. She was thankful her parents had decided to keep the house to vacation in, even though they rarely found the time to visit. 

Paul put his things on her grandfather's side, and that made her feel a rush of sadness and thankfulness, too. 

Carmen and Lena drove to the airport to fetch Bee and Eric, then she went back alone when Tibby's plane landed, because the addition of baby Adam meant that they would no longer fit in the car all together. She was the first of them to meet him, cradling him in her arms, marvelling at how he looked like her best friend. She even hallucinated something of Bridget's in the curl of his lip, and Carmen in his ears, and she was seized by the desire to draw him, to which Tibby said that she'd be honored.

The official meeting, obviously, had to happen without the boys - so they nicely threw all of them out of the house, Eric and Paul going off to research good running paths, while Brian and Win offered to walk the kid around for a while. Lena watched Tibby fuss around their stroller, ensuring the sun-blocking curtain fell just right over her son, and she expected to feel the same punch to the gut she had felt when Carmen walked down the aisle toward her, but all she felt was this nice, quiet nostalgia washing over her. Paul kissed her on the cheek before leaving. (Carmen thanked him for keeping it PG, and he held out his tongue at her.)

They sat down on the ground, shaded by the olive tree growing in the Kaligaris' backyard, and in the middle of their solemn circle was a slightly overwhelming mountain of candy from all corners of the world. Bridget detailed with enthusiasm where she'd been when she got everything, talked about who she'd first shared it with, described the quality of the sunshine in every single spot. Tibby told them about the pregnant woman cravings she'd had for this weird Australian candy and how Brian had filled the house with them. Of course, despite this exotism, Carmen and Lena's goold old American candy remained the favorites, and Tibby wondered at how gummy bears could taste like home.

After they had caught up with everything, Carmen asked for silence. Lena smiled at her usual taste for the dramatics.

"I think the time has come to retire the Pants," she said, and Bridget gasped.

Lena wanted to gasp, too, but she saw Tibby nodding in accord, and she realized that it had been quite a while since she'd felt the need to wear them. 

"Why?" asked Bridget, and she sounded betrayed. Lena frowned at her, and wondered if she should have been more worried for her friend all along.

"They don't fit me anymore," said Tibby. 

"Did you try them on?" asked Lena, who doubted this.

Tibby looked meek. "Come on, my kid is one month-old. There's no way these marvelous pants will fit post-partum me, and I'm not going to stretch them out just to confirm that."

"The Pants always fit," said Bridget, looking hurt. 

"Let's all try them on one last time," said Lena, taking Bridget's hand in hers. "It'll bookend their life."

So they did. The Pants, obviously, still seemed like they had been sewed for each and every one of them. Lena reveled in their beloved feel on her legs. She traced her finger over the things they had written or drawn or stiched, feeling like everything was happening all over again, even the memories that weren't hers. She thought of Bailey, of Baja, of Carmen's little brother, of Kostos. Everything seemed to shine brighter, the hurt taken out of the bad memories, safe in the knowledge that it would all turn out fine.

"What are we going to do with them?" asked Carmen.

"I don't want them to languish in one of our closets, gathering dust," said Tibby, and they all agreed.

Lena looked in the distance. The sun was shining on the waves. "We could drop them in the sea," she said. 

Bee shivered. "How about we bury them? Right here?"

"Of course the archaeologist was going to be the one to suggest that," said Carmen, chuckling.

"Fabric is not going to last long enough to be digged up by archeologists, which you would know if you ever listened to me. I just meant…" Bridget took a big breath. "That way, if one of us ever really needs them, she'll know where to go to get them, even if they'll be unwearable."

All of them looked at the Pants on the ground. Lena fiddled with a patch of grass. "These Pants were our roots," she finally said, her eyes on the Pants, though she felt her friends looking up at her. "If we put them in the earth, they can help new life take root, like they did for ours." She looked up then, finding all of her friends' eyes shining with tears, like hers must be. "Like you did for me," she said, finally, her voice strangled. 

The girls grabbed each other in a messy circle hug, Bridget grabbing the Pants so that they'd get in the middle of the hub. They were crying and laughing and babbling, and then Lena went to get a shovel. They each took a turn, Bee pretending she could scientifically determine how deep they should bury them in. Lena found a nice box, and they shoveled the earth back on top of it, then stood around their handiwork awkwardly.

"Well, now that we've buried our friendship, shall we make dinner?" said Tibby with her usual deadpan. Carmen and Bridget both poked violently at her in retaliation. 

The men returned, and if they were bewildered at their disheveled state, they didn't say anything.

* * * 

"I found the best running trail," said Paul, taking the orange juice Lena had poured for him. "It ends at the lighthouse, it looks amazing. When would you like to go?"

"Is this a couple thing, or can we join in?" asked Bridget, who was munching on a piece of toast. 

"Of course you can," said Lena, smiling at her. 

"Is this a group thing, or can we stay in?" asked Carmen, worriedly.

"Please stay with me," said Tibby. "And entertain my sleepless kid while I blissfully rest."

"I could do that," protested Brian.

"Please, you slept as little as I did," said Tibby. "Plus, when are we ever going to get free babysitting like this again? Just you and me in bed, darling father of my child." Tibby grabbed Brian by the hem of his shirt and drew him to her, kissing him on the mouth.

Carmen made a face. "You know, I thought it was only my brother kissing Lena that annoyed me, but I think I get annoyed by all the kissing, ever."

"Please, like you and Win didn't submit us to plenty of PDA," said Bridget.

"You kiss people for a living," pointed out Brian, though Win seemed to want to protest that definition. 

"At least this is not as bad as the time Paul refused to go on a double date with us on Valentine's Day, because, and I quote, he ‘planned to give Lena fourteen orgasms to celebrate'." 

Paul spluttered in his juice and coughed heartily, Eric slapping his back gleefully amidst everyone's laughter. Lena, obviously, found her cheeks burning up. "Didn't think it'd come back to bite me quite so publicly," Paul said when he finally started breathing again.

"Sister," shrugged Carmen, with an evil grin.

"Shall we leave before more of my sexual life is revealed?" asked Lena, putting her hair up in a ponytail. 

Bridget and Eric ran alongside them for a while, before they got antsy and started sprinting against each other, letting Paul and Lena far behind - though not far enough, Lena noted, that she couldn't still hear Bridget's crying out with joy whenever she won. Lena and Paul's pace was steadier, and if he thought she was too slow, he never mentioned it, like he never had in their nine months of running together. 

They turned a corner after a steep hill and came face to face with a book store. Books were spilling out of their shelves, even outside. Paul slowed until he was barely walking, and Lena smiled at him. "Go," she said, and she pretended not to notice how convenient it was that the route he had designed included a nice spot to rest, right after twenty minutes of running uphill.

Paul entered the store like a kid entering Santa's workshop. He was holding her hand, and she felt privileged to witness his amazement. She browsed a bit, admiring the way the books were everywhere, but eventually her legs protested. She spotted a bench outside, kissed her boyfriend on the cheek and told him to take all the time he wanted.

The view was amazing, like it always was, and she read the quote on the bench before sitting down and letting her face soak up the sunshine. A minute of eternity passed, before she heard someone clear his throat.

"Lena?" the someone asked, and she stilled, recognising the voice. She waited a second more before opening her eyes, expecting the usual wave of panic, but it didn't seem to come.

"Kostos," she said, opening her eyes at last. He looked magnificent as ever, his eyes crinkling in the sunlight. He held out his hand to help her up, and he kissed her cheeks, and she apologized for looking like someone who had just been running for a while, which he laughed away.

"You look good," he said, and she wondered how she was supposed to take that. 

"How are you?" she asked. Her voice was steady. Her hands weren't clammy. Her heart was beating fast - but it had been before he arrived.

"I'm good," he said, carefully. "I came to pick up books for the kids."

"Oh," she said, because she didn't know what to reply to that.

"You look well," he said again. 

"I am," she said. 

"Good," he said. "I'm happy for you."

Lena saw Paul through the window of the store. He was still looking at books, carrying a couple in his arms. Her heart warmed again. "I'm happy for you, too." She looked up at Kostos, and he had a wistful smile on his face.

"Come here," he said, and he opened his arms.

Lena had never been good with physical contact, and she had certainly never been good with touching Kostos in any way, but as soon as he asked, it seemed like the natural thing to do. 

He wrapped his arms around her and she felt his face in her hair. She looked up again, and Paul was looking at them through the window. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

"I'm happy, and you're happy, and we could have been happy together," said Kostos, and her breath hitched. "I am very glad I met you, but I think everything turned out for the best." She knew Kostos couldn't have said these things to her if he had been looking into her eyes, so she held him a little tighter. 

"I do, too," she said, and she was astonished to realise that she meant it.

Paul came out of the store, books in hand, and Kostos let go of her. "Hi," said Paul. "I assume you're a friend of Lena's?"

There was no trace of jealousy in his voice, and Lena marvelled at Paul's goodness, once again. "Paul, this is Kostos, Kostos, Paul," she said. Paul did stand up a little straighter when he heard her say Kostos' name, but he held out his hand and smiled.

Kostos disappeared into the store with one last handwave, and Paul, having put his books in the backpack Lena just realised he must have brought for this purpose, wrapped his arm around her back. They stood on top of the caldera, looking out at the sea.

"Do you want to keep running?" he asked.

"No," she said, taking his hand and walking slowly in the direction they came from. "I want to go home."

**Author's Note:**

> [Atlantis Books](https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/583-6-reasons-you-need-to-visit-atlantis-books-in-santorini) is the bookstore in Santorini. Let's go.


End file.
